The Importance of Social Media in Online Rewards Programs

How big of an impact does social media make on establishing customer loyalty? The short answer is a lot! The long answer is the content of this article.

Social media has changed: the way marketers reach an audience, the level of communication between business and customer, and the way we share information. The social media wave has no doubt disrupted everything in business and rewards programs are no different.

Here are 4 ways social media has made rewards programs better!

Social Media + Online Rewards Programs

Social media is a huge driver of customer loyalty and online rewards programs are well suited to take advantage. When your program is run online you have a much easier time capitalizing on social media as well as a few other benefits.

1. Social Media Makes it Easy to Promote Your Program

There is no easier way to reach a huge audience than with social media. A few clicks and you have access to 1.4 billion Facebook users, 300 million Twitter users, and a variety of other networks. Savvy marketers can use this to a huge advantage with their rewards programs.

This large audience makes social media the ideal place to promote your rewards program. You can let your entire Twitter following know that you have launched a rewards program. Or you could tell all your Facebook fans that you are now rewarding points for customer referrals.

Not only is it a great way to let existing customers know about your program but you can also use it to let people discover your amazing rewards program and brand. Just use hashtags that resonate with your potential customers. Do not miss this easy way to promote your program!

2. Social Media Creates Two Way Communication

You used to have to make a tweak to your rewards program and then analyze the data to determine what your customers thought. Now with social media you can just ask them, or sometimes they may just tell you.

Customers will tell you when something goes wrong with your program. For example, last summer Starbucks cancelled Gold Cards in what the media called an “age-goof” and customers let them know.

This may seem like a huge negative, but it actually can provide valuable feedback you can use to adjust your program. You can find some great feedback when customers share their displeasure like in this example.

Social media also gives you the opportunity to engage with your customers and communicate about your rewards program in real time. Just check Starbucks Twitter account, they are communicating with program members all the time.

The lesson here is that you can create valuable two way communication with your customers that can lead to improvements as well as fixes to problems.

3. Social Media Extends Your Program’s Reach

Social media presents an amazing opportunity to market to potential shoppers who have never even heard of you before. You can use your social channels to reach an audience, but you can extend that audience into your customer’s network as well.

Each one of your customers has an average of 634 members in their social network that you can reach with their help. You just need to get them to start sharing your program from their social channels.

There are two ways to do this. You can encourage social sharing to happen organically by providing an amazing customer experience and engaging rewards program. You can also reward your customers with points for social sharing.

4. Social Sharing is Easy to Encourage

By far the greatest benefit social media has given to rewards programs is the ability to easily create marketing benefit. Sometimes points are not enough to encourage an action if that action is viewed as time consuming, or difficult to do.

A social share is neither time consuming nor difficult for your customers to do. This makes it a very easy way to generate a ton of value. Every Time you encourage a social share you are expanding your marketing reach and potential customer base.

With the click of a button your customers can become marketers for you! Who wouldn’t share your store and brand for 500 points? It is easy for a customer to do and requires very little effort on their part. All of our rewards program integrations allow your customers to share your store over social media with the click of a button. Check them out below.

(click a platform for more info)

Social Media is Important for Loyalty

Social media has made rewards programs much more effective than they ever were in the past. They allow you to easily promote your program to the world, and allow you to make tweaks and changes based on actual customer feedbacks.

They also give you an action to reward points for, and a very effective one at that! A social share is much easier to encourage than other actions that require more work like an account registration or a referral. Your program can give points for a simple click of a social share button.

Social media makes it easy for you to engage and communicate with your customers. It also makes it easy for your customers to provide you a ton of value.